Equal Protection Standards and State Extra Majority Vote Requirements
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Authors
Breeling, Roy G.
Issue Date
1970
Volume
3
Issue
Type
Journal Article
Language
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Abstract
INTRODUCTION|As a rather unexpected result of the development of the "one man, one vote" rule of legislative reapportionment, many state election procedures requiring extraordinary majority voter approval in "direct elections" are now being challenged as unconstitutional. The constitutional provisions and statutes under attack are common, in one form or another, in a large number of states. Basically they all involve a requirement that more than a simple majority of the voters, voting in a direct election upon a particular issue, approve that issue before it can become effective. For example, involved in the recent case of Lance v. Board of Education, were state constitutional and companion statutory requirements that bond issues for improvement of educational facilities receive 60% voter approval for passage.|Of course, as a practical matter, these extraordinary majority requirements often prove to be insurmountable obstacles to the approval of direly needed community projects. The facts of the Lance case reveal that from 1946 to 1969 no school bond issue put to the voters pursuant to the extraordinary majority provisions involved therein received the necessary 60% approval. From 1967 to 1969, on six different occasions, bond issues received the approval of over 50% of the electorate voting, but less than the required 60%.|Of course, the approval percentage varies from state to state and within states from election to election. In four recent cases some indication is provided of the varying degrees of difficulty the extraordinary majority provisions present to the passage of "special issues" in various states; the approval percentages varying from 55% in Minnesota to two-thirds in California and Idaho...
Description
Citation
3 Creighton L. Rev. 324 (1969-1970)
Publisher
Creighton University School of Law